Ahem. Uh, hi? This is My-Joyful-Chaos posting a long overdue fanfiction that I thought may something share-able. Well, uh, enjoy(?), I guess.

Disclaimer: Yeah, um, Elsword belongs to KoG and all that. Yeah.


Chapter One:
Desolation

A clock ticked methodically, the needle jolting a small distance every second in it's constant circle. The screwdriver spun in a similar fashion, going around and around until the wielder was satisfied and set it aside.

She peered into the clock's inner workings, at all of it's mechanisms, every gear and spring. And she tweaked. Little adjustments made the biggest difference to a perfectionist such as herself.

Once she had finished fine-tuning, she decided that the clock needed a good bath. It was a bit rusty, with bits of grime in the seams and a dusty face. So she polished it, well enough that it reflected the light of the singular candle glowing on her desk.

The clockmaker wiped her hands of the clock's previous contaminations and sat back down at her sturdy oaken desk. There, a virtually towering pile of other clocks sat awaiting modification. It seemed the entire town's worth of clocks had decided to make a fuss.

She sighed, setting the finished clock to the side before grabbing another to begin working on. Surely the mess of timepieces would take the remainder of the night, and thus the following morning, to clean.

But then, the clock maker would be quick to discover, there would be quite the interruption. Despite this, she continued to work.

It wasn't until a bit past midnight, as told by one of the many finished clocks to the clock maker's side, that this interruption came to pass.

It started as a low grinding, nothing but an annoyance whispering in her ear. Almost like a fly buzzing about. It quickly grew, however, into something far more frightening. After the span of a fat minute had passed, the clock maker, screwdriver still in hand, finally decided to take a peek out the window.

The street looked generally peaceful, not at all unusual, other than the extraordinarily bright light flashing around the corner. In curiosity, she leaned a bit more into the glass, attempting to get a better view.

The source of the light quickly revealed itself. The clockmaker gasped. It was a robot, a large robot, perhaps more than ten feet tall, with a glowing orb where one might locate it's chest.

All-in-all, the clock maker observed, it was rather humanoid, but for the fact that it was made of metal, and was puffing quite a bit of steam from a pipe protruding just a bit out from it's back. It had two arms, two legs, and rotating orb at the top resembling a head. All was connected to the main body, which held a large light surrounded by bars like a cage, by large gleaming bolts.

It was a technology she was unfamiliar with, something entirely alien to the clockmaker. She couldn't stop staring, it was so enrapturing, when it lumbered down the street, passing it's light over nearly everything. Not when it paused under the nearest streetlamp.

Not even when it raised a mechanical arm, looking oddly similar to a Gatling, to point at the nearby town hall. in the next moment, the arm began rotating, shooting projectiles at an almost invisible speed. Immediately, the town was filled with huge sounds, beating on the doors and supports of all the buildings around.

The clock maker put her hands over her ears, still not letting go of the screwdriver whilst cringing at the sounds of bullets beating against the city building, the concrete beginning to shower down in clouds.

The street soon filled with the residents of neighboring buildings, almost blocking the clockmaker's view. And as if the battering sounds of destruction weren't bad enough, the deafening screams of terror ringing throughout the town were far more irksome.

So, the clockmaker ran out onto the street. The noises of chaos became that much more earsplitting, but the clockmaker ignored it. She looked about, seeing the terror stricken faces of citizens attempting to escape, the cloud of smoke rising from some unknown buildings in the background, and the large humanoid robot still wearing away at the concrete city building.

Despite the pushing of the crowd, the clockmaker started towards it. Screaming surrounded her, elbows constantly jabbing, bodies continuously jostling together. They pushed her away, down to the cobbled street. She landed hard, but still somehow managed to dodge the kicking feet and pumping knees of the townsfolk.

The clock maker found the sidewalk, and crawled into a nearby alleyway. She remained there as the crowd gradually began to thin, nursing the bruises and scratches and scrapes gained from being underfoot the, albeit small, horde of citizens.

Once the crowd appeared navigatable, the clockmaker finally rose to peek out from the alleyway.

A mess. Smoky, dusty clouds rose from the entire town. The sky was painted dirty rather than it's usual star-dotted inkiness. Someone, several solitary someones, were screaming a frightening choir, almost in sync. Many lay on the cobbles, the kicked up, overturned, dirty cobbles beneath, moaning and nursing wounds.

The focal point of this entire scene was the great mechanical weapon, standing where it had been the entire time. It's strange orb of a head twisted about to survey the scene before one hinged leg rose to plant itself a bit ahead. Then started up a solid rythm, the grinding noise of one mechanical leg rising, halting at it's peak, and slamming into the cobbles below.

It walked slowly, jerkily towards the clockmaker. She would have moved, should have moved, but she stood transfixed. Fascinated. As if, with the very screwdriver she held in her hand, she could disassemble it, figure it's inner workings out. But she couldn't. She could only stand there, peeking shyly from behind the corner of a brick building.

It lumbered on, not even pausing when it was less then five feet away. From that distance, the clockmaker could see the bolts, the welded creases, some gears poking out from it's frame. It just continued it's up, pause, down rythm, never missing a beat. It's footfalls shook the cobbles, shook the bricks, shook the buildings, shook the clock maker's knees 'til she had to fall to them.

The Clock maker realized, then, that her little shop, just across the street, had collapsed to it's knees, also. The entire structure in shambles, broken clocks spewing from the dangling-from-one-hinge door.

And she thought, 'What now?'

Around her, the town was slowly deteriorating. The already ancient buildings, the old clocktower, the only new building, the city hall, all just crumbling to bits. The bits and pieces hanging, shaking, falling at every footfall of the robotic beast of a machine.

So, she stayed in her alleyway, with the company of a few cast out garbage bags, rats, and the smell of decay everywhere. Maybe she fell asleep, but she found she really culdn't remember in the morning. Everything was foggy, like the remains of the town, it's bits ground to dust, clouded her head.

She stood up, though, from her position on the cobblestone street, and walked to her beaten down little shop. One last look, one last sadness, before she allowed herself to let it go.

Then, she just turned to look down the street, not bothering to survey her surroundings again, and began walking. She didn't trip or stumble or feel the ache in her feet. Not once did she pause, hesitation never came. She just walked past the sad, sagging, disintegrating buildings with no words to breath out.

And finally, after stepping out of the city's farthest limits, she looked back.

Desolation. Ruin. Death.

The screwdriver felt heavy in her hand, but the clock maker gripped it harder, knuckles whitening, and turned to face the rest of the world now unfolding before her.


Confession time: The mecha thing in this was almost completely inspired by Bioshock :/ except bigger, and less rusted, and not accompanying a creepy little girl.

I hope this was enjoyable, and I also hope that I somehow dig deep and manage to continue this because I think steampunk is definitely an enjoyable genre ^^;. Expect airships and mechanical appendages, though I suppose both of those are kind of already included in Elsword, aren't they? Huh.

Goodbye for now,

~My-Joyful-Chaos